Fuhr: The Story of a Hockey Legend: by Grant Fuhr with Bruce Dowbiggin

Grant Fuhr: The Story of a Hockey Legend by Grant Fuhr with Bruce Dowbiggin. Random House
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Grant Fuhr played in 1018 games in NHL career. Add all the junior, All Star and international games, and it must be pretty hard to choose a top ten most memorable games from such a storied career. 

But that is what Grant Fuhr has done in his new autobiography, Grant Fuhr: The Story of a Hockey Legend.

Not surprisingly his NHL debut, his 1-0 shutout win in Game 1 of the 1984 Stanley Cup final en route to Oilers first Stanley Cup victory top the list. So is the dramatic 1987 Canada Cup.

“You have Mario on the side and Gretz with the puck,” Fuhr said in a recent interview. “There’s no two better players in the game to have with a chance to win a hockey game. Wow, I had the best seat in the house to watch it.”

The book is written with Bruce Dowbiggin. It is a typical jock-autobiography, with Dowbiggin turning hours of interviews into a retelling Fuhr's career. But I really enjoyed how they allowed Fuhr's unedited comments to jump in regularly, adding a lot value to the text.

For all his accomplishments, Fuhr had some blemishes in his career, namely his suspension from the sport due to cocaine use. Dowbiggin pursues it and Fuhr is very open about it, wanting readers to realize everyone mistakes, but you can overcome these shortcomings.

Fuhr, who also had to deal with racial issues, says he is completely comfortable with his past and with who he is now. It is a good message from one of hockey's good guys - a message maybe all young hockey stars should read.

From The Publisher: GRANT FUHR was the Hall of Fame goaltender for the Edmonton Oilers, and the first black superstar in the National Hockey League. He is now a role model and fundraiser for charity, inspiring young goalies around the world. Fuhr plays golf at the professional level on the pro Stars Tour, starring with ex-professional athletes who benefit charities by their activities.

Ice Storm: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Vancouver Canucks Team Ever

Ice Storm: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Vancouver Canucks Team Ever
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From the publisher ... "An incendiary inside look at the Canucks' meteoric rise to the top of the NHL and their dramatic post-riot fall to mediocrity—all at a time when new efforts are being launched to save the once-great team.

In 2008, the Vancouver Canucks were Team Modern, revolutionizing the NHL under their new GM, former player agent Mike Gillis. Cool, calculating, and unsparing with the media, the onetime number one draft pick of the old Colorado Rockies swept away the tangled psychological past of the Canucks with bold innovation, remodeling Vancouver as a destination city for NHL star players. To do so, he built the Canucks from a non-playoff team in 2008 to the best in hockey from 2010-2012. He modernized the players' diets and psychological approach, he rebuilt the dressing room, and he sought sleep consultants to help with the Canucks' punishing travel schedule. More than that, his winning team lifted Vancouver from eighth overall in NHL revenues to second by 2013. When the team took to the ice for Game 7 of the 2011 Cup Final, it seemed there was nothing the Canucks couldn't overcome with their "Canucktivity" approach. The hockey world was at their feet.

But things changed in Game 7. Physically exhausted and bullied by the Bruins, the Canucks succumbed 4-0. To cap the greatest season in team history, Vancouver rioted. Gillis tried a number of aggressive moves to get back to the Final, from switching Luongo for Schneider to trading players, but nothing worked. From there, the dominoes fell: Alain Vigneault was dismissed, John Tortorella hired; Tortorella raged, fans bayed for Gillis' head; and finally, Gillis and Tortorella were both fired. In spring 2014, tried-and-true Canuck hero Trevor Linden was installed as president, with former teammate Jim Benning by his side as GM. No one was quite sure if this was an improvement, but at least the hysterical screaming had stopped.

How did it happen? Ice Storm follows the journey that led the Canucks from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the abyss in six short years.

Joe's Note: I must admit that I am an unapologetic Vancouver Canucks fan at heart and always will be. The years building to the 2011 Stanley Cup final were the best years of my hockey fan life. And then it all blew up, mostly because of injuries. After that the team quickly floundered, thanks largely to mismanagement. What had been the greatest moment in Canucks' fans lifetimes has quickly soured.

I have every assurance that Dowbiggin has fairly and properly chronicled all the events here. He even gives Mike Gillis a little more credit than almost any of us would, and probably deservedly so. That inside look at Gillis, as well as other situations such as committing to the Sedin Twins and the whole Luongo fiasco, are what will make or break this book. Whether the author has spent enough time exploring those angles is key.

I say this having not actually read the book. I can't. I won't. At least not yet. That is no slight to Mr. Dowbiggin or this book in any way. Dowbiggin has a good track record with his many other book projects and I respect his work immensely.

As I said earlier, I am a die hard Canucks fan. And I am not yet ready to relive these events. But I have bought the book. And I will put in my always growing pile of books to read one day down the road. But I am not ready to crack the spine just yet.

2 Minutes For Booking: Of Ice And Men by Bruce Dowbiggin

Here's a great quote from Bruce Dowbiggin's book Of Ice and Men:

"They say it is a true story, and even if it isn't, it's too good not to tell. Pugnacious junior Link Gaetz of Spokane showed up at the 1988 amateur draft sporting two black eyes. To everyone in attendance at the Montreal Forum that day, the burly defenseman looked the essence of hockey toughness - to everyone except Glen Sather, that is. Asked to appraise the young prospect, the Edmonton Oilers president, general manager, and, at the time, coach - took one look at the battered Gaetz and said, "I'll take the guy who gave him the black eyes."

Published in 1998 by McFarlane, Walter & Ross, Bruce Dowbiggin's Of Ice and Men is a collection of four biographies. Dowbiggin takes a look at Detroit's great leader, Steve Yzerman; Chris Chelios' two way brilliance; Dominik Hasek's uncanny goaltending; and master architect Glen Sather.

The book is a bit dated, as all four of the profiled legends have added to their stories in the 12 years since the book was published. It is still a good snap shot in time, looking back four of hockey's great when they were at or close to the top of the game.

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The Stick by Bruce Dowbiggin

When I heard of the 260 page book about the hockey stick, I must admit to being a bit skeptical. How could an author carry the reader's attention for that long about a single piece of hockey equipment?

That was the task facing Bruce Dowbiggin, and he handled it masterfully. Dowbiggin is a very accomplished columnist and beat writer with several book titles on his resume, but none of them rank as high on my list of favorites as 2001's The Stick: A history, a celebration, an elegy.

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Dowbiggin opens by exploring the hockey stick's origins among the Mi'kmaq indians of Nova Scotia. He moves on to the mass produced wooden weapons to the evolution to graphite and composite sticks that have rendered the wooden hockey stick extinct, at least at serious levels of play.

That is all expected, and dutifully chronicled but in a way that is far more interesting than you would expect. He brings in narratives, often first hand, of some key players in the stick's evolution. Players like Stan Mikita, Bobby and Brett Hull, Wayne Gretzky, Guy Lafleur, Ken Dryden and a host of more modern warriors like Adam Oates, Eric Lindros and Jeremy Roenick. It is the player's doting attention to their craft's main tool that makes the story of the stick so interesting.

Equally interesting is how the stick's evolution has greatly impacted the evolution of the game itself. Dowbiggin makes an interesting case that no other on-ice development has had such significant contribution to the game over the years.

Dowbiggin does try to connect the story of the hockey stick to the story of Canada. He writes the book with the purpose of defending the hockey stick as "a quintessentially Canadian symbol," calling the stick "as Canadian as maple syrup and the call of the loon." I do not think the book completely makes that connection because in order to properly chronicle the history of the stick the author needs to cover the increasing globalization of the industry.

This book is nothing short of excellent, appealing to readers who enjoy sports reminiscing as well as readers who prefer more in depth cultural and societal analysis. For me, that is what every great hockey book should strive to accomplish.

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The Meaning Of Puck by Bruce Dowbiggin

In Canada it is often said that hockey is more than just a game. It is who we are. It is our way of life.

Author Bruce Dowbiggin even goes as far as to suggest that hockey is perceived to be "a window into our very soul." The award winning sports broadcaster and journalist looks through that window and looks at Canada as seen through the fascinating and sometimes contradictory lens of hockey. His new text The Meaning Of Puck: How Hockey Explains Modern Canada is perhaps the most profound book of the 2008 crop.

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In a collection of essays, Dowbiggin looks at how hockey reflects on so many of the pertinent issues facing Canada, both historically and currently. Such issues as globalization and regionalism, anti-Americanism and racism, violence and military involvement, and hero worship and villains are explored, often eliminating a few Canadian myths along the way. Did I mention anti-Americanism? That one comes up a lot.

For example, Dowbiggin looks at how Hockey Night in Canada's insistence on airing Toronto Maple Leafs games every Saturday night mirror's western alienation against southern Ontario's dominance of this country.

He looks at how Quebec separatists use hockey as a soap box to advance their political and social causes, often dragging the rest of the country into needless debate.

He concludes Canadians use hockey to keep anti-Americanism very much alive and well. And he nicely summarizes that peace loving Canadians craze violence in hockey, even if they blame it on our neighbors to the south.

Or how Canadians see themselves in two very contradictory hockey legends, Wayne Gretzky and Don Cherry, even though in reality we are nothing like them. Or at least not like the image we hold them to.

The book is very much social commentary with lots of history thrown in to support Dowbiggin's chosen argument. These thoughtful essays are purposely designed to be provocative. Some stances will make you mad, while others you will agree with, perhaps surprisingly. All will make you think, and undoubtedly feel passionate about whichever side of the debate you find yourself on.

Dowbiggin is an expert writer, with previous books Money Players: How Hockey’s Greatest Stars Beat the NHL at Its Own Game, Of Ice and Men and The Stick: A History, A Celebration, an Elegy on his resume. This book is almost be the most intelligent hockey book of the 2008.

It also tries to be funny at times, which is good. I found the text to be so thorough at times that it exhausted me. It is not meant to be a light book, but that is a good thing. There are far too few books like this in the hockey book marketplace.

As good as the book is, it was not a book that I just could not put down. Perhaps it is just my reading style, but I really felt I had to stop after each chapter in order to truly draw the most from each standpoint. It's almost like I felt that the text was trying to be so profound that I had to pause and reflect on what was said in order to give it full justice.

Not only is this a very intelligent book, it has the potential to be a very important book of the future. I can see this book being used repeatedly for university papers about Canadian society and history.

That is not to suggest this book is written in the highly academic (read boring) format of most university text books. In fact, Bruce Dowbiggin is the perfect author to make these loud claims.

And these messages will be heard, because this is going to be one of the most critically acclaimed books of the season.